A fuel injector is described in German Published Patent Application No. 197 36 682 for direct injection of fuel into the combustion chamber of a mixture-compressing, internal combustion engine having externally supplied ignition, which has a guide and seating region at the downstream end of the fuel injector formed by three disk-shaped elements. In this connection, a swirl element is embedded between a guide element and a valve seat element. The guide element is used for guiding an axially movable valve needle reaching through it, while a valve closing section of the valve needle acts together with a valve seat surface of the valve seat element. The swirl element has an inner opening region having several swirl channels which are not in communication with the outer circumference of the swirl element. The entire opening region extends completely over the axial thickness of the swirl element.
It is particularly disadvantageous in the fuel injector known from the above-named document that gaps are created, during assembly of the swirl element, between the swirl element and the guide element, as well as between the swirl element and the valve seat element. This alters the metering cross section, whereby the dispersion of the static flow through the fuel injector is increased. This has a negative effect on the operation of the fuel injector because of differences in the metered fuel quantity per injection cycle.